Some Consequences of Operation Schmelt
Introduction by Bernard Robinson

BACKGROUND

On October 31, 1940, SS-Oberfuhrer Albrecht Schmelt was appointed “Special Emissary of the Reichfuhrer-SS and Chief of German Police for the Employment of Foreign Nationals in Upper Silesia (Sosnowitz)”.  His goal was to create forced labor camps where Jews would be required to work as unpaid laborers for the German military. Jews were not permitted to work for public or private organizations and had to register citing their work abilities. 

A more detailed timeline and description of what took place over the life of several of these camps may be found in Mr. Robinson’s book, Some Consequences of Operation Schmelt.   A copy of the book is available at the The Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills, MI (please see the Acknowledgements section below).

DATABASE

This database includes 2,414 women who were forced laborers during World War II in the Gruenberg and Neusalz concentration camps, as well as several other camps. The work describes the camps, and a forced 400 km death march which ended for those who survived the march, in Volary, Czechoslovakia for some and Bergen Belsen for the others.  The work was carefully researched and documented by Mr. Bernard Robinson, in memory of his wife, Amalie Mary Reichmann-Robinson, of Bielitz Biala, who was one of the Gruenberg forced laborers.

Below are the individual lists created by Mr. Robinson.  For those that are in German, the translation is below the German.  The page numbers from 1 through 45 refer to Mr. Robinson’s book, Some Consequences of ‘Organization Schmelt’.

The fields in the database are as follows:

• List number
• Page number
• Surname
• Given name
• Date of birth / Age
• Country of origin
• Date of death
• Camp name
• Flossenburg number
• Gross Rosen number
• Grunberg number
• Schlesiersee number
• Neusalz number
• Comments

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The information contained in this database comes from the book, Some Consequences of ‘Operation Schmelt’ written by Bernard Robinson in memory of his wife.  The book was made available to JewishGen courtesy of The Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills, MI.  For additional information on this and other Holocaust materials, visit their website at www.holocaustcenter.org.

Thank you to Nolan Altman, Director of Special Projects and Coordinator of the Holocaust Database, for his continued devotion and dedication to JewishGen’s important work.

Searching the Database

This database can be searched via the JewishGen Holocaust Database or the JewishGen Unified Search